From the dumps of Mexico City to the rolling hills of Nebraska, Hope of the Poor has served thousands of people in need. But their work does not stop there: for the past eight years, they have been facilitating a different type of mission trip to help students evangelize the poor—and the poor evangelize them.
Over 3,000 students and adults have traveled to Mexico City with Hope of the Poor. Their week-long mission typically involves serving food and clothing to those who live on the streets and in the city's sprawling garbage dump and spending hours accompanying the elderly in nursing homes.
They also make a pilgrimage to the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe and a retreat with daily Mass and adoration—with the hope that the week may spark conversions in the students' lives and in the lives of those in need.
CRAIG JOHRING
Co-Founder, Hope of the Poor
We really believe the poor are a gift. And they help lead us to Christ and to our conversions. And so we don’t see the poor as a problem but we see them as a blessing to help us encounter Christ.
Now, Hope of the Poor is expanding their mission field to yet another important place for the Catholic faith—this time, on the other side of the world in the Eternal City.
CRAIG JOHRING
Co-Founder, Hope of the Poor
There are poor everywhere, but especially around pilgrimage sites. And so we want to bring people to Rome to help evangelize the poor and for the poor to evangelize them.
For the group of high schoolers from Kansas who will spend the week on this mission, it will be different from any other trip to Rome.
ALAN HOLDREN
Teacher and Mission Leader
It will make a huge mark on these kids who are coming students who are coming to serve the poor and you hope that there would be a lasting effect also with those who are being served and that they see that people love them, they have dignity and there is an element to those coming to Rome that they want to help the people that are here. They don’t just want to see the sites and just consume, but they want to bring something—their own love—and they want to see Jesus in the faces of the poor.
Rome may just be the beginning for Hope of the Poor internationally. Other pilgrimage sites might be added to their mission field to continue to help people encounter Christ in the poor and “alleviate the poverty of being unloved.”
AT
